Off The Rails

 Two whole years.

Today is the 6th of March 2022, which makes it two whole years since the last time I went anywhere outside of walking distance except for the three times I went into London to St Thomas' Hospital.

At one point it would have been technically possible to go somewhere for a day, but given that so many places were shut and any walk would have been very unlikely to wind up in a pub unless I booked a seat days before for a specific time, which all seemed like too much faff. 

Then I got to the stage where I couldn't really afford to go anywhere and do things, so boo.

Two years ago, however, the weather wasn't that great, and I wanted to do a camera check so on the spur of the moment went somewhere that was relatively picture-skew but had indoorsy bits to shelter from any showers that might prevail. So off to the Amberley Museum which seems to have survived recent events and is still going with its old buses, narrow-gauge railway and collections of olde-worlde stuff.

So time to take some olde-worlde cameras!

You can see what recent weather conditions had been like from this picture taken on a 1950-something Ensign Ful-Vue.

Big puddles everywhere.

The camera I'd really gone to check on was my mid-1950s Leica IIIf. The last time I used it half a roll of film was lost due to frames only being partly exposed. The fact that this was the first half of the roll and the second half of the roll was fine suggested I'd done something wrong, but I wanted to check at different shutter speeds from the slowest hand-holdable speed to the fastest. All the shots turned out fine, which seemed to confirm that it had been my problem rather than the camera's, but I reckon if, when I can afford it, I get the Leica serviced, it'll see me out, as they say. It's a lovely camera, and I've had some great shots from it and look forward to using it again.

The narrow gauge railway runs around the old lime quarry where the museum is based and you can ride on it if so inclined.

Another indication of what the weather had been like is here, where the rails by the side of the old lime kilns were not usually under water! Nicely reflective, though.

Just to provide full coverage I'd also slipped my Ricoh GR in my bag for indoors and colour shots. Always had a soft spot for Ricoh's wide angle compact cameras.

And what 'lady of the house' would not be satisfied with a loudspeaker shaped like a parrot. Truly the past was another place.

The forge was in action that day. Well that's one way to keep warm!

So yeah, shame that my last photographic outing wasn't somewhere more exciting, but there you have it.

There are more shots probably viewable at better resolution here.